He says the American soldiers engaged at Bunker Hill were “of almost pure English blood, with a slight mingling of Scotch-Irish from Londonderry.” I note among the dead killed there the following “Scotch-Irish” names: Broderick, Collins, Dalton, Dillon, Doyle, French, Haggett, McGrath; and Washington, desirous of recognizing this “Scotch” element in his army made St. Patrick the countersign on a certain evening during the siege. I recall that it was this same class of Irishmen with the Scotch prefix, from the New Hampshire town of Londonderry, called after an Irish town of that name, and which was originally planted by English and Irish, who insisted upon double rations of whiskey to celebrate St. Patrick’s day before Ticonderoga.
Mr. Lodge should learn to call a spade a spade, an Irishman an Irishman, for we will. The desire of a certain class of people to call themselves “Scotch-Irish” may be passed by with a smile; ignorance and weakness deserve pity rather than censure; but we must insist that the dead of our race shall be neither miscalled nor misrepresented, and that their laurels shall not be filched nor their glory stolen by those who have neither pride nor scruples.
Whatever Irish came from New Hampshire—and the hills were full of them—it would be a grave mistake to imagine that Massachusetts, so English and so Puritan, did not have her share. The Puritan Alva—Cromwell—and his villainous understrappers sent many a thousand Irish victims to Massachusetts Bay as bondmen and women; and voluntary immigration brought thousands of others. The town records show this; and whole districts in western Massachusetts were settled by them; and yet we are asked to believe that when men cease to be Catholic Irishmen they become Scotch-Irishmen. I can find no other excuse for the absurd title. Here are a few of the “Scotch-Irish” names on the rolls of the minute men of the day:
Joseph Burke,
Richard Burke,
Daniel Carey,
Joseph Carey,
Peter Carey,
Patrick Carroll,
Joseph Carroll,